32 and final judgment. If I'm alive, it will flyaway. If I am dead, it will eat me as the soul devours the body in the grave. T HE sky turned black before my eyes, and I knew I must go back to town and sleep. Then . . . I was there, in town. Though it was after- noon, the cafés were crowded and the crowd was getting drunk again. At the hotel, I asked a girl at the desk for my key, and I had no sooner spoken than I saw, jammed between the back wall of the office and the office safe, everything I ownf'd in MeÀico. I had been picked up, folded, packed, and thrown out. The g rl stared with growing con- cern at the expression on my face, fear- ing a scene, perhaps. Then the old proprietor stepped forth and rescued her. CC\Ve told you, young sir, that you must leave by Saturday. The ruoms have been reservado for much time, since the noviemhr{' or more, oh yes, since much, much time-and must have the rooms. All your things are made and you are free to leave them if you so wishing for looking to another room. I'm sorry, I'm sorry." And he was, I could tell. He could see how tired I was, and he had been following my progress through the days and nights and the thousand drInks and the little drops of sleep and the body h unger-he had seen it all, for he was always there, awake and watching, needing sleep no longer, no more than the ancient, ancient man who spun and sprang from tabletop to tabletop in his ballerina guise, wailing from his painted lips, jabbing his cigar at the starry sky, shaking the chili peppers hanging from the \vrinkled lohes of his ears. Those men were too 0] d to sleep, but not I, not I. I left the lobby in a daze, determined to find a room and rest I struck out along the General Manuel Á vila Ca- macho, the avenue along the Gulf, stopping at every hotel on the way. My rough question-ccRa)' un cuarto . . . para una persona "-receIved the same answer in one form or another from every manager's boy Short, curt refusals. Cursory shakes of the head. Each time, I stood staring, expecting some further remark, or at least dn ex- pression of S} mpathy, but there was no sympathy and nothing to discuss. There were no rooms in Veracruz. The pro- prietors, gorged and satiated on the writhing flesh of the carnival city, were tired of the rush and happy to be full, to be able to say no-simply, flatly, finally, no. I worked back through the streets away from the Gulf, around the market, THE ROOF GARDEN A nervous hose is dribbling on the tar This morning on this rooftop where I'm watching you Move among your sparse, pinchpenny flowers, Poor metrunomes of color one month long That pull the sun's rays in as best they can And suck life up from one mere inch of dirt There's water in the sky but it won't come down Once, we counted the skyline's water towers, Barrels made of shingle, fat and high An African village suspended above The needle hardness of New York that needs More lIght than God provides to make it soft That needs the water in the water towers To snake through pipe past all the elevators To open up in bowls and baths and showers Soon our silence will dissolve in talk, In talk that needs some water and some sun, Or it will go the same way as before: Dry repetitions of the ill we bear Each other, the baited poles of light AnglIng through the way the sun today Fishes among the clouds. Now you are through Watering geraniums, and now you go To the roof edge to survey the real estate Of architectured air-tense forms wrought up Torn down, replaced, to be torn down again . . . So much like us. Your head against the sky Is topped by a tower clock, blocks away, Whose two black hands are closing on the hour, And I look down into the street below, RInsed fresh this morning by a water truck, Down which a girl, perky in high heels, Clops by, serenely unaware of us, Of the cables, gas lines, telephone wires, And water mains, writhing underfoot. -HOWARD Moss . . back to the festooned Cinco de Mayo, scene of processions and saInts and the death of the Spirit of Ill-Humor, feeling now outcast and apart. Returning to the hotel that had ejected me, I stood dumbly in the coo] colonial lobby , sway- ing with fatigue, staring at the pat- terned tiles, the shuddering palmettos, the expression of suspicion and curious apprehension on the face of the girl be- hind the polished, panelled desk. The old man who did not sleep sat in one of the wicker chairs and watched me with a smile of helpless compassion. Mv goods remained by the anCIent safe, comfortable and secure in their resting place, while I, separate even from my bag, shoes, and laundry, did not even have a place to sit. I could not stand- I knew I could not simply stand in the middle of the lobby, stanng gaunt and hollow-eyed like some boiled ghost. I pivoted-perhaps swivelled-lurched toward the street, and absconded into the crowd. As I said, time had become a primitive thing, and I felt the evening through my ears in the blast of maria- chis, and through my nostrils in the sweat and perfume and piscine smell of the mob, and on my tightening skin, which, judging from the shiver and burn the cool late breeze brought to my fatigued spirit, had been seared scarlet by that devIous sun. I made my . . r/ " ( . \ \ 'I j \ '" \ 14,j l ( /' ,..,. J"';"'" / . .. ! -j'" \ "l,. /